Brian Walton's news and commentary on the St. Louis Cardinals (TM) and their minor league system

What is new at The Cardinal Nation?

While blog posts here have been less hot and heavy in recent days, that isn’t because there hasn’t been plenty of news about which to report. Here is some of what I have been doing over on the main site, TheCardinalNation.com, over the past few days.

This is over and above our daily Minor League Notebooks, Major League game recaps and weekly Minor League team reports written by the team of primarily locally-based reporters.

Minor league rosters

The rosters for the four Cardinals short-season clubs are up to date. They include Batavia, Johnson City, Gulf Coast League and Dominican Summer League. The nine team pages at The Cardinal Nation also enable you to view rosters, player profiles and articles back to 2004.

The minor league rosters can be accessed via the “Minor League Rosters” dropdown menu located on the red bar to the right of the site logo. St. Louis’ roster can be found on the same red bar underneath the site logo by clicking “Team Info” then “Roster”. The latter reflects the 25-man roster only.

Player profile pages

On each of the team rosters, individual player names are highlighted, same as in every article on the site. Click on names to view profile pages for any one of the almost 300 players currently in the system. All short-season players are on their correct teams and all 44 of the Cardinals’ 2012 draftees have profiles, including photos and biographic content.

On a player’s profile page, you can find links to current year and career stats, photos, videos, bio information as well as links to every article and news item we have ever written about that player.

Single system view – roster matrix

Within the next day or two, I will be publishing a new update of the “Cardinals organization roster matrix” here at The Cardinal Nation Blog. The matrix displays every player in the system at his current level and position – on a single page. It is updated daily in sync with the team rosters on the main site. It also includes a 40-man roster view.

To take in our full slate of coverage of the St. Louis Cardinals system from top to bottom, subscribe to TheCardinalNation.com today! Only $79.95 brings you one full year of Total Access Pass and all premium content on TheCardinalNation.com, Scout™ Player and Roster Database (including the ‘Hot News’ at the top of the site), Breaking News and Information, Total Access to all Scout.com Websites, and Player Pages, detailing the progress and careers of players from high school, the minors, and the professional ranks.

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I am scratching my head about the move lifting Skip for pinch hitter Robinson. Skip hits lefties better than Shane. His avg vs lefties has improved dramatically the last year or so, while Robinson continues to have the same pronounced reverse split he always has. He sucks against lefties, so what gives?

I’m not sure about lifting Descalso either, with two hits the closest thing we had to a hot bat. And its not like he was lifted for a clubber off the bench.

It already has been removed. The biggest problem in STL has always been managing the player/fan propaganda at the same time you are functioning in the market place. He is the new currency. Get used to it. All organization do there own scouting. They have well developed “opinions”. The minor leagues are scouted 10/1 over any other source.

Great work by Westbrook, and a very big win. Going under .500 is always a reliable gauge for unhappiness growing. Be nice to get a little hot right now to get above several games and cut into the 3 1/2 game deficit in the division.

And I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again……..Outfielders, and certainly outfielders whose primary team function is their bat, should not be diving for balls in front of them. First off if you don’t get it it can be a triple. Second off you can get injured. All in a desperation flinging of the body at the ball in order to prevent a single.

Great point. Losing awareness of the warning track and running full tilt into a wall and landing on the DL, like Jay, that kind of hustle can cost us the season. It’s terrible. You have to play under control.

The problem is that if a manager employed a doctrine of restricted hustle in some cases, the media would have a coronary watching it and most particularly having it explained to them. They would have to feign outrage to appease the live-and-die-on-every-play fans. But they all would eventually get over it.

It’s only workplace safety, which is generally respected. If its bad to have a coal mine explosion, why would it be good to have a costly elite athlete run into a wall. We put pitchers on pitch counts, so why can guys challenge walls? Play safe and start 150 games.

Not to mention that when the team is already injured, the healthy should do everything possible to avoid joining the list. Craig does not need to make ESPN top 10 defensive plays of the night right now. He needs to bat 4 or 5 times a game.

I always remember watching Pujols time and time again running full speed toward the wall and far end of the rain tarp after a foul pop. With the second baseman and right fielder closing fast as well. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? DON’T DO THAT.

I was just looking at Gaub’s numbers today. It’s an ok start, but two runs in 4 2/3 innings is neither dominating nor a broad sample of work. He could get a chance later but isn’t exactly dying on the vine.

Brian, there seems a quirk in the reporting of stats. If you go to MiLB and look at the Memphis stats, Gaub has made 10 appearances, with 11 ks in 9 innings pitched, and a sub-1 WHIP. Pretty good. However, if I go through the MLB 40 man roster and select on Gaub, the statistics are lagged and it is only through 5 appearances at Memphis.

There seems less updating of the MLB data and the minor league statistics seem more up to date, which seems unsurprising, given a minor league player.

My overall point is that Freeman has spent little time at AAA. He does not have a lot to offer yet at the ML level. Gaub has more experience at AAA and is pitching well for Memphis. Its time for them to be switched.

More importantly, the Cards should be doing this themselves, not relying on me to complain. There can be a fine line between success and failure. We need to upgrade the roster, even for the junior loogy, if we have an opportunity to do so. Freeman has had his cup of coffee, its time for him to continue to gain experience at AAA.

The “quirk” is that you misinterpreted the numbers. The larger total is his league total. The other is the current team’s stats only. Before being waived by Texas, Gaub pitched in five games for Round Rock, like Memphis a member of the PCL. What he did in another organization should not be relevant to his potential call up to St. Louis. Further, Gaub’s most recent outing for the Redbirds (on Wednesday) was his worst with the team by a considerable margin.

Go back and look at Raul Valdes’ numbers for Memphis last summer prior to his call up to St. Louis. They put Gaub’s to shame. Yet Valdes couldn’t cut it with the Cards. Fortunately, the organization has more assets at their disposal when making these decisions than a simple stat line.

Finally, if you really think the Cards are relying on you to complain, well ….

“What he did in another organization should not be relevant to his potential call up to St. Louis. ”

Not sure that makes sense to me. To take that further, a team should not consider a player’s stats when making a trade for a player (even at the major league level) as those stats were compiled in another organization. Why wouldn’t they be relevant?

The overriding consideration would likely be given to what they have seen most recently with their own eyes. Seems pretty obvious his past minors results contributed to him being put on waivers. That is hardly a strong argument for a call up to the majors.

Gaub has impressive minor league stats, in their entirety and during 2012. First to consider his pro career. 330Ks in 238 innings is uncommonly strong. This is diminished by wildness, walking 151, but the overall WHIP is still a respectable 1.34.

Looking at 2012 in isolation, he has been with 3 AAA teams. He has been good for all three. At Memphis he has whiffed 7 in 4.2 innings, while only walking 1. His WHIP is a fine 0.64.

He was least effective at Durham in the International League, but excelled at his other PCL stop, Round Rock. Gaub has more minor league experience than Freeman, who has lost a season or two to TJ surgery.

Gaub has made 136 appearances at AAA/ML. So he has a lot more high level pitching experience than Sam Freeman. Its odd Gaub is not in the Cards bullpen.

Freeman has a grand total of 6 appearances at AAA. He has mostly been a AA pitcher, but his K rate is beneath 1 per inning. Gaub has more swing and miss pitches, plus is much more experienced at advanced rungs. Its nice of Freeman to fill-in for a while, but Gaub or starting pitchers Gast and Lyons seem better suited for the ML pen.
The downside to using Gast or Lyons is they have ascended so fast, they will not be eligible to be drafted this fall via Rule 5. We would prefer not to have to call them up now, because then they would have to stay part of the fall roster. However, Mo would bite the bullet on this, if he has to.

It may be odd that Gaub isn’t in the Cardinals bullpen given the terrible cast of lefty cast-offs they’ve employed in recent years. They seem to prefer sub-mediocrity in the role.

I don’t find a minor league career WHIP of 1.34 to be particularly respectable. I don’t find his 2010 WHIP of 1.875 to be rosterable, nor his 1.482 WHIP in 2011. I don’t find assertions that rate stats in 4.2 IP mean anything to be particularly serious.

thanks Brian-Even if Gast can be like Scrabble it would be nice to see the organization develop a few more LHPs.I know there are several in the minors at AA or below.LHP seems to have been a sore spot that theCards have been lacking in developing for several years.